Vasulka Video: Lecture

Date: 7 March 2004 | Season: Vasulka Video

VASULKA VIDEO: LECTURE
Sunday 7 March 2004, at 3pm
London Candid Arts Trust

Woody Vasulka: Lecture on Sound and Image Relationships in Early Video Art

Initially, they identified two properties peculiar to video. Both audio and video signals are composed of electronic waveforms. Since sound can be used to generate video, and vice versa, one of the first pieces of equipment the Vasulkas bought was an audio synthesiser. Many of their tapes illustrate this relationship – one type of signal determines the form of the other. Their second interest entailed construction of the video frame.  Because timing pulses control the stability of the video raster to create the “normal” image we are accustomed to, viewers rarely realise – unless their TV set breaks down – that the video signal is actually a frameless continuum. This fact, discovered accidentally, fascinated the Vasulkas.

“At that time, I was totally obsessed with this idea that there was no single frame anymore. I come from the movies, where the frame was extremely rigid, and I understood that electronic material has no limitation within its existence. It only has limitation when it reaches the screen because the screen itself is a rigid time structure.” —Woody Vasulka in Afterimage, 1983

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